Goat farmers in the African country are finding great benefit in the protection they now have against drought.

Kenyan goat herders are now enjoying some very positive insurance news as a drought coverage plan that was developed by professors at Cornell is now starting to prove its worth in protecting them against unpredictable and unavoidable dry weather conditions.

For most of the Kenyan farmers who now have the coverage, this is the first time that they have had protection.

The last dry season was detrimental to livestock for many Kenyan herders, but at the same time, there was great insurance news because those same farmers received compensation for their losses in a way that is much more familiar to farmers in North America. This coverage is not common in Africa, but it is starting to become more available to help to protect growers and herders against some of the most damaging weather trends that can cause catastrophic losses.

This insurance news is helping to change the nature of the risks faced by goat herders in Kenya.

The Index Based Livestock Takaful (IBLT) is now benefitting the first wave of farmers, with over 100 Muslim pastoralists taking advantage of what it has to offer them. This livestock insurance brings together the Takaful Islamic principle with state of the art imagery from satellites. This co-operative system helps to share any losses that are experienced by the herders in the program.

At the head of this Cornell program is Chris Barrett. He is the David J. Nolan Director of the university’s Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. The school is the primary research partner within a larger consortium that is working to form insurance coverage products that are culturally acceptable and that will help to decrease the devastation that is being caused by some of the most extreme weather conditions that are faced by the most vulnerable populations in the developing world.

This insurance news can make the difference between survival and losing up to everything from the results of especially detrimental seasons of drought. This may be able to help people who had previously been stranded in poverty to be able to climb their way back up and, hopefully, stay there.